Executive Director Jerry Snodgrass

OHSAA Board of Directors Meeting Highlights

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio High School Athletic Association Board of Directors held its regularly scheduled February meeting Thursday morning at the OHSAA office. The following are highlights from the meeting. Complete meeting minutes will be posted at OHSAA.org.

By an 8-0 vote, the Board approved the OHSAA Executive Director to complete contracts for the 2019 baseball state tournament in Akron and the 2019 football state championships in Canton. Details are included in this separate release: https://bit.ly/2N7b0d1

By an 8-0 vote, the Board approved the 2020-21 and 2021-22 season calendars for wrestling and basketball. Note that in 2020, 2021 and 2022, the wrestling and girls basketball state tournaments will be held on the same weekend. Future calendars are posted at: https://www.ohsaa.org/calendar/FutureDates

Since the Board’s last meeting, five member schools were penalized for committing infractions of OHSAA bylaws or sports regulations. The list of infractions and penalties is always included in the complete meeting minutes, but media members may request the list in advance from Tim Stried, OHSAA Director of Communications, at tstried@ohsaa.org.

The Board reviewed the attendance and financial reports from the 2018 football playoffs. The total attendance for all five rounds was 379,587, which marked the lowest since the tournament expanded in 1999 to include eight teams per region.

The Board also reviewed the attendance and financial reports for the regional and state cross country and volleyball tournaments. In cross country, due to flooding on the course, the state tournament was postponed one week, which resulted in increased expenses and lower attendance, which was 9,602, down from 12,054 in 2017. In volleyball, the state tournament attendance was 13,386 and the regional tournament attendance was 26,131.

The Board approved additional referendum items that OHSAA member schools will vote on during the annual referendum voting period in May. The total approved items now include two constitution proposals, 12 bylaw proposals and two bylaw proposals specifically for 7th and 8th grade schools. Each member school principal is responsible to vote on behalf of the school and voting will be conducted electronically for the first time in 2019. Details are posted at: https://ohsaa.org/School-Resources/referendum-voting